


Forehead Kisses Mean "I Love You"

by Hawkbringer



Category: Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (Video Game)
Genre: Abrupt Ending, Changing Tenses, Declarations Of Love, Doloran is bad at his job, Doloran is basically Doofenschmirtz, Fluff, Forehead Kisses, Future Fic, Jungian Shadow Doloran, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, On Purpose, Out of Character, Post-Canon, Promises, Repeatedly - and he's getting sick of it, Roland Returns, Roland is a romantic sap, Roland repeatedly keeping himself PG, Rough Draft, Self-Denial, Teenage King Evan, Undressing, i left my notes in parentheses, mentions of Roland's World, mentions of service dogs, to keep it still M-rated, un-beta-d, why tf is Yearning not a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:15:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23506990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: A post-game AU where Doloran keeps calling Roland back to Evermore, again and again AND AGAIN, because he is not confident as a fledgling king and keeps having 'convenient emergencies' for Roland to solve. But Doloran does eventually learn confidence, and tact, and the months between 'emergencies' stretch longer and longer. Roland struggles to express to King Evan, now a teenager, how badly he wishes he could stay for good. Evan takes him at his word, and surprise after surprise awaits Roland when he returns after their longest 'dry spell' yet. (AU future fic, un-beta-d, mind the tags)
Relationships: Roland Crane & Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, Roland Crane/Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum
Kudos: 9





	Forehead Kisses Mean "I Love You"

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [What was Lost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14309697) by [LadyGerbilLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGerbilLuna/pseuds/LadyGerbilLuna). 



> written 11th May 2018
> 
> For the purposes of THIS fic, Doloran is a bit of a loser - bad at his job, still emo, still grieving, completely lacking foresight - basically the /competent/ Roland's whiny, childish, Jungian Shadow. But still with tremendous power. Ergo, he can summon Roland over from ichi-no-kuni whenever Doloran wants, to ask him for help with rebuilding Allegoria or whatever else.
> 
> Original Author's Note: 
> 
> Perhaps Doloran develops some kind of spell to cast on him where, not only does Roland get his Doloran's-physical-age-d body, he also gets put back in his time like a few minutes or hours or some shit after he leaves. So he effectively develops epilepsy in his real life. Perhaps he doesn't have control, neither he nor Doloran, of /when/ Roland gets summoned... Ooh, that could be a real deal-breaker, man. BUT IT'D BE HELLA FUNNY TO SEE ROLAND JUST MATERIALIZING IN THE THRONE ROOM WITH HIS ARMS CROSSED AND A SCOWL ON HIS DAMN FACE, WONDERING WHAT DOLORAN FUCKED UP THIS FUCKING TIME. He's a lot like Roland's Jungian-shadow, and he IS still young, he is still so viciously prideful and loving, despite the world-shattering-level of loss he experienced that SHOULD have made him wiser... People don't change /that/ much. So he's a lot like Naoto's Shadow, alternating between a prideful grandstander and clingy, needy child. (see Persona 4) 
> 
> Roland rolls his eyes and rolls up his sleeves and gets to work leading Doloran around the ruins that he's intending to turn into Allegoria again, because while the man once /ran/ a kingdom, with passion and fervor, if maybe not /well/, he has never /built/ one. Roland is the one with experience in that. Once Evan is further grown and spending less time asking his councilors for help, and more time coming up with solutions on his own that /include/ the details he usually left to others... THEN Roland begins to feel safe in leaving Doloran's troubles to Evan. (Which leads to, what? Shorter visits? Fewer of them? Why does Roland come at all? How DOES he get back? He just does, because it's time. Some shit like that.)

Evan at one point even says something /nice/ about his quote-unquote evil twin, and Roland stands there slack-jawed like he about to smack the boy. Which is when he realizes he isn't a /boy/ at all. He's so much /taller/ all of a sudden, like he'd gotten a growth spurt in the last two years. 

(if that's how long it's been since Roland's seen him last. They see each other with some frequency, days on, months off. Perhaps it had been the longest 'dry spell' so far before this moment, and Evan has started his growth spurt now. Yes, that makes sense. It follows, too, with how it's several months, if not years, again /after/ this moment that he /really/ gets to see him again.)

Evan's eyes are precisely at the level of his lips, making him the perfect height for forehead-kisses if Roland ever turned into the type of person who felt inclined to give them. 

Apparently, he already /is/ that type of person, because that thought rolls around in his head for /days/ as he follows Evan around, nodding approvingly with his arms crossed as Evan consuled the errant would-be-king. 

Some days later, he's gazing out upon the bright and cheerful day outside from his favorite stained glass window in the throne room, standing rooted to the spot that he usually disappears from, because something in his heart told him it was time, and Evan found him there. The young king ran up, joined him at the window and implored him to stay. 

Aware they were both alone, Roland lifted his hand as usual, for their usual goodbye, but this time placed it at Evan's cheek, bent the young king's head down just the faintest bit towards him, and touched his lips to his brow. Drawing back with a fond smile on his face, he watched Evan's face as the young man's eyes filled with tears, stroked his thumb along his cheek. 

He wanted to say something, wanted to give the young king hope for a 'next time', wanted him to understand how deeply and truly Roland himself didn't want to go; how his duties felt effortless here, his contributions appreciated and studied, the exact opposite of being ignored. How deeply he loved the friends he'd made here, as well as, /especially,/ Evan himself. 

With so many things he wants to say crowding his mouth, only one escaped, as his vision turned to white and his sense of touch faded away, his body separating into flickering points of light. 

"I love you," he whispered, unable to see the expression Evan made in response. (He doesn't learn for many, many months how profoundly that one phrase had affected his king, because he isn't called back for that long.) 

***

He woke in the backseat of yet another caravan car, the pure contentment on his face making his personal aide faintly envious as she cooed over it and asked him what he'd dreamed. "My boy... all grown up... Happy in his role, good at what he does... Yeah..." He sighed, closing his eyes again and folding his hands over his stomach, head tipping backward as he recreated the view from the throne room window in his mind's eye. 

He didn't know, for months, how his young king was feeling, until he was called back again, this time during a meeting that thankfully did not involve an immediate national security threat. 

Now hyper-attuned to the sensations that preceded his body being called over (his thoughts felt like they hadn't left at all, most days), Roland decided that he would have enough time to make himself a little more comfortable, for once. So, completely ignoring his Cabinet members, he folded his arms atop his paperwork on his desk, laid his cheek down upon them, and by all appearances, immediately dropped off to sleep. 

His Vice President rose admirably to the occasion, and talks began that afternoon, in his absence, that perhaps the President would do well to step down, his 'health condition' being what it was... Later, his detractors accepted the compromise of a therapy dog trained to recognize seizure auras to pad around by the president's side. It was a real win for the pro-therapy-animals side of the medical community, to have the President accompanied by one, and able to address head-on, in his forthright way, many of the common myths of the day about therapy animals. The jury is out, however, on whether or not the dog can recognize the physical symptoms of being summoned to another world... (If I went much farther with this plotline, I'd name the dog Lydia in honor of LadyGerbilLuna's tamed spinyback wolf she created for Roland's son Ethan named Lydia, in "What was Lost". LOL, those DOGS could be fuckin' soul-mates, why not.) 

But Roland knows nothing of what his Cabinet continues to discuss without him, because he has gone, left the building, as it were, waking to find himself enveloped in familiar, loving arms. 

***

It's a bit of a shock, to have hands on his face nearly as soon as he is again conscious of /having/ a face, let alone how they tug on him like no doctor testing his eyesight ever has. Moreso is the shock of being kissed on the forehead by a person who has to stand on tip-toes to accomplish it. 

"Thank the stars you're back, Roland. It's been so long, I've missed you so." 

Roland chuckles, one hand rising to touch his own forehead, as though to check for the minor injury his minder had noticed and decided to kiss better. 

"You've missed me before, haven't you?" 

"Never quite like this," Evan replied gravely, leading Roland by the hand out of what Roland notices, only upon /leaving/ them, are the Chief Consul's rooms. He /has/ materialized in various places, all of them tending to be small and safe and empty. He has apologetically walked out of houses in outer Evermore more than once, but the citizenry has long since grown used to his inexplicable appearances, and generally just helpfully points him towards the palace or informed him of King Evan's whereabouts, usually without him having to ask. There /are/ benefits to be so well-known, particularly in such a small and cozy kingdom as this one, where truly everyone knows each other and they have all met their king in person, at some point or another. 

This /is/ the first time his materialization has been /witnessed/, however, and as he follows his king out into the larger rooms, he can see through the windows that it's dark out, some small hour of the night, not fit for man nor beast, and certainly not for a king. What was King Evan doing in the Chief Consul's rooms in the middle of the night when the man in question wasn't even there to consult? 

As Evan pulls on his hand to get him to rush along to who-knows-where at this time of night, Roland has to ask. "Evan, were you... waiting for me?" The young king looks back over his shoulder guiltily at that, but doesn't actually slow their pace much. 

"I, um. I go there a lot. When you aren't around. Sometimes I..." He turns to face front again, and Roland chuckles. 

"Can't bring yourself to say it, huh?" he muses out loud, watching the young king's shoulders relax subtly as they slowed, finally, to a walk, Evan coming to the realization that they really should be heading back to Roland's chambers, by all rights, at this time of night, unless Evan wanted to take Roland to /his/... 

While trying to puzzle out which decision would result in less scandal, Evan nearly misses the gentle rumble of Roland's quiet voice asking him a question, catching only the lilt up at the end. 

"I'm sorry, what?" 

Roland's half-exasperated, half-fond smirk makes all of Evan's worries and fears melt away into a puddle of happy goo at his feet and he wonders for the six thousandth time how Roland is so special as to be able to do this to him. "/Do/ you go to my rooms to talk to me? Even though I'm not there?" 

"Er, um, that is!" Evan's eyes go wide like he's been caught, but the warm and widening grin on Roland's face tell him he's in good hands in his embarrassment. 

"It's no big deal, Evan, really! No one's there to judge you for what you say! Honestly, you're probably better off talking to me when I'm /not/ around! That way I could never break your confidence." His eyes sparkle as he says it and Evan knows he's being let in on the joke. He reaches out to clutch Roland's arm tight against his chest anyways. 

"Mmm, no, I'd much rather have you here, potential traitor and betrayer of secrets that you are!" 

Roland sees so clearly two impulses at war within him. One side of him continues the joke, launches into a rehash of the story of his clumsy and false betrayal of Evan to Mausinger before he had signed the Declaration, downplaying his ability to betray or hurt his king to reinforce how Evan saw him, as familiar, comfortable, and /safe/. Another side of him pauses, and to his budding curiosity, Roland finds his body actually following along with this second impulse almost as quickly as Roland can play out the scenario in his head. 

He stops in his tracks but tightens his hold on Evan's hand, and throws off the potential, depressing, subject of his eventual, final departure from this world upon his death, and seizes on the first half of Evan's statement. "Despite all that, you want me here?" 

"Absolutely!" Evan declares whole-heartedly, jaw slightly slack as though uncomprehending. "How could you doubt your welcome here, my friend? My Consul? You are closer than any friend, to me." He looks up into Roland's face with eyes and mouth turned up towards a sunny sky, towards happiness and truth, heart-meltingly sappy, as though he expects to be kissed at any moment by his one true love...

Starting to panic somewhere deep inside himself as he watches himself lean down and close his eyes, the prudent side of Roland reigns in his impulsive one just at the last second and the inevitable kiss lands on Evan's forehead, again. 

Evan's eyes narrow as Roland lifts his head up, crow's feet appearing that signal his grief. "Doesn't that mean goodbye, when you kiss me?" 

Roland's eyebrows lift and peak at the center. "Does it mean goodbye when you kiss /me/?" he parrots, referencing his immediate greeting upon his first appearance not 5 minutes ago. 

"N-no! That was... To say I love you. To say hello. And I missed you." He's not embarrassed, Roland marvels, eyes flicking about the young man's face. He's just being perfectly honest, and a little scared. /I can do nothing but respond in kind,/ Roland's newly-freed romantic side pontificated, hand over its tiny, shoulder-angel-sized heart. 

"So. That's what it means for me, too. Just.... I love you. And I'm so glad you're here." Evan giggles, and it's exactly the same sound it's always been, his joy impervious to the deepening wrought by the march of years and hormones. 

"That should be /my/ line, Roland! I'm the one who doesn't go anywhere!" 

"Mm, but how can you be sure," Roland muses, idly stroking his king's down-soft face right there in the middle of a deserted corridor at night, neither of them paying any mind to potential passersby, though there were none. Only the guards, who were sworn to secrecy already. "Maybe your whole world is the one that leaves me behind, and I'm the only real thing..." 

"/You're/ the protagonist of the story?" Evan's teeth look almost sharp as he bares them to laugh in Roland's face. "I think that's what Leander calls solipsism, and he doesn't think very highly of it in anybody, and certainly not in rulers with responsibilities to /others/-" Evan accentuates his point with a finger-stab to the ribs that makes Roland chuckle more than anything, "-on their shoulders. At least that's what he told me." Evan smiled at him with half his mouth and Roland's eyes widened as he recognized Tani in that smirk. They really /had/ stayed close, hadn't they? He recognized the flood of relief in his veins and called it gratitude that Evan still had his found-family around him, when Roland himself wasn't nearby. "And seeing how gloomy just contemplating the /idea/ is making you, I'm quite inclined to believe him!" 

"Wha-? Who're we talking about now?" Roland had quite lost the thread of the conversation by that point.

Evan laughed then, full-throated from his stomach, and it echoed off the ornate walls around them. He immediately slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes nearly popping out of his skull. "Blimey, it's past night-watch, I'm supposed to be in bed!" 

"Well, what are we waiting for? Are there any emergencies that require the honorable king of the realm to put off his beauty rest a single minute longer?" 

Evan sighed, looked off towards a hallway they'd passed earlier as he brought his hand down from his mouth. Roland watched it fall, wondering if he should catch it, but the choice was made for him a moment later as Evan grasped his, awkwardly smashing fingers between thumb and fore, companionably rearranging his grip when Roland nudged him to do so. 

"OK, but at least let me walk with you. I don't usually see you first thing when you arrive." 

"Walk with me to your chambers? What, aren't you going there, too?" 

"To-? /My/ chambers?" 

Roland tries to shrug it off. "Mine aren't prepared, are they?" It's true, he usually doesn't appear /during/ nighttime, and even if he did, the emergency facing them all was usually so dire as to necessitate him finding sleeping space on the airship's floor. "Yours are already lit and heated, I assume?" 

"Well, you're not wrong, but..." The young king bites his lip and Roland's free hand lifts of its own accord, thumb attracted to the possibility of sliding across that plumped, wet lip when it reappears. 

The president redirects it in mid-air, sliding his forefinger beneath Evan's chin. He tilts his royal face towards him, as gently as he possibly can, and purposely wipes all tension from his expression, wanting Evan to see him as relaxed as possible. He'd hate to be separated from Evan so soon after reuniting, but if the boy has a complaint of some type... "You don't want me there?" Evan's breath hisses on the inhale, just a bit, and the edges of his smooth, wide, cheeks turn just a little red. He doesn't reply, eyes fixed too intently on Roland's to remember to speak. "Just tell me if the answer's no. I can handle a bit of rejection at my advanced age." He can't help the lift of the side of his mouth, but purposefully drops it, along with the hand beneath his young king's chin. "Just thought it a bit more... expedient, than waking all the maids, ya know?" He forces a slightly jollier tone that Evan clearly doesn't like, the younger man shaking his head as soon as he hears it. 

"The answer..." he begins. Roland waits 10 full seconds, but the king does not continue. 

"Is it a yes?" 

"Well, it's not /no/, but I'm not sure it's 100% yes, either." 

"E/van!/" Roland's pure surprise drags down his quiet exclamation of his king's name, a realization dawning on him. The young man looks up, lips pulled flat and low as if about to be scolded. "You didn't think I wanted to take your bed, did you?" Evan, surprisingly, does not turn red at the idea. 

"Um, well. Not, exactly, /take/ it, but..." 

"I was planning on taking the couch, kid. I wouldn't force you to share." 

"But I wanna share!" The young king slaps both hands over his mouth again and Roland realizes the kid is turning pale now, in addition to everything. He's probably working himself up into a tizzy that /Roland/ would most likely have to calm him down from. With a substantial exhale that surprises the young king with its suddenness, Roland again, gently, takes his king's hand and tugs him in the direction of their rooms. 

"How about we figure it out when we get there? My rooms are right next door anyway if you do decide to kick me out." 

"N-Nevah!" Evan breathes as they walk briskly through the empty hall. "I don't... want you to leave at all, Roland, that's why I'm /apprehensive/." Roland hums consideringly as he glances both ways at a hallway junction, reflexively searching for assailants. 

"You know I don't want to leave you either, Evan. I thought we talked about this?" 

"No, I mean, I /really/ don't want you to leave," Evan insisted more animatedly as they closed one of the doors to Evan's chambers behind them. (Having never actually been a fan of stairs, his chambers were constructed with a distinct lack of them, a labyrinth of sitting rooms and semi-parlors taking their place to confuse the unwary. It really hadn't been Evan's idea at all - the young king likes luxury well enough, just, well, /less/ of it.) "I'm not sure I'll be able to /go on/ if I wake up in the morning and you're not there, right beside me." 

Roland's eyebrows shoot up as he and Evan begin their well-oiled nighttime routine of partially disrobing in each room they pass, since each /one/ was equipped with a wardrobe for various types of official functions. Great place for hide-and-seek with higgledies, these rooms were. 

"So you /do/ want to share the bed." 

"Absolutely. In fact, I'm going to insist on it." Evan turns to Roland once they're barefoot and nearly nude, having closed the last door behind himself. He stands with his hands dramatically planted on his hips, and with his lanky, tall young shape barely hidden by the thin cotton-like material his skin-clothes-layer is made of, Roland can only think to himself that he's /never/ known a king like this one. 

"Well, I won't /refuse/!" he huffs out, unaware of the way his eyes flash, hungry, in the half-dark of the fire-lit room. Evan doesn't move his hands from his hips, though. 

"No, never again." 

"Refuse?" 

"No, you won't... Hmmm." He sighs expansively and studies Roland's face before lifting his arms like a child wanting to be picked up. 

When Roland steps forward, expecting a light, teasing, brotherly clasp of his forearms, he's startled, if pleasantly so, by the way the king slides his out-stretched arms around his neck and lifts himself up onto his short toes to kiss Roland's forehead again. 

"I /love/ you," he repeated, having established earlier that that's what forehead-kisses mean when he gives them. "And I think I understand what people mean when they talk about not being able to live without their loved ones." 

"Oh, Evan," Roland sighs, sliding his arms slowly around Evan's back, each palm sinking to land on the backs of his narrow hips, neither squeezing nor tugging on them. "I love you too," he chokes out, stepping forward to place his cheek against the side of Evan's head. "I just can't /promise/--" 

"Forever. I know." Evan sighs, nuzzling the dip of Roland's temple with the ridge of his brow, just like the cats Roland knows back home. "Then promise me tonight. And tomorrow." 

"If the fates allow me to stay, I will." 

"Hm." Evan very faintly laughed at him, finished his nuzzling, and took a step back towards the luxuriously-furnished bed that he probably slept in every night, despite the loneliness the huge size probably induced. "What happened to charting our own course against fate?" 

It is in these moments that Roland can recognize how far Evan's come. He hardly recognizes how the boy talks sometimes. 

"You are a truly astonishing young man, Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum," Roland stated as though it were simply a fact, following his king to the side of the bed, throwing back the covers even farther, and sliding in after him. "My life has been so much better since I met you." 

He rolls, under the covers, to face his bedmate, heart happily, fuzzily contented to see his king smiling with not a hint of fear on his face. 

"You must know I feel the same, Roland." Roland lets his eyes close as his lover's hand strokes up his neck and lands on his cheek. He lifts a hand to hold it down. 

"Yes. Now I do." 

A bit more exhausted than his king, owing to the dimension-hopping-filled day he's had so far, Roland's about to actually drop off to sleep when Evan whispers near his ear, "I'm /trusting/ you to still be here in the morning." 

"Well, eyaahhh," Roland mutters back with a yawn, half-asleep already, "I'll do your best, my majesty." Evan doesn't even laugh at the word-swap. 

"I really hope you do," he replies earnestly, not interested in taking his hand back from Roland's sleep-sticky face for as long as he remains conscious.

*****

Roland wakes the next morning, glad that he /does/, to the very particular sensation of being kissed on the nose. He doesn't /have/ a pet at home right now, as far as he knows. Has his kid gone out and gotten one without his permission? 

"Nnnngh, Fluffyyyy!" he mutters, the first pet-name coming to mind that of one of his childhood cats. "Not time to wake up yet." 

"It shouldn't be, I agree. But I'm not the one who writes the schedule, am I? And did you just call me Fluffy?" More mirth seeps into the young king's voice the longer he speaks, and more awareness seeps into Roland's skull the longer he listens to that voice talk. He still doesn't open his eyes. 

"Did you just kiss me on the /nose/?" 

"Uh-huh. It means good morning, thank you for waking up next to me like you promised." 

"Pretty specific for just a little nose-kiss... Oh, love you too," Roland grumps, his sleep-roughened voice, even more fascinating to Evan now that he can really hear it up close, interrupted when his king bestows upon him another kiss to the forehead. Evan's grin widens as he realizes Roland's still not awake enough yet to actually know who he's in bed with. 

The naughty voice that speaks like Tani in his head goads him to try something unexpected, just to see if Roland will go along with it. But he concedes to the louder, more kingly, voice that actually speaks like Roland does, most days, (unless he's having a bad day, then it's Mausinger) and decides to wrap his arms around Roland and cuddle the man until he says his name to get him to stop.

Bit unfair of him to start a game without explaining the rules to the other participant, but Evan shrugs off this thought, giddy with the permission he's been granted to touch Roland everywhere he feels like it, everywhere except --

"Hey!" 

/That/ woke him up.

"Jeez, how would /you/ like it if I just grabbed your tail without warning, huh?"


End file.
